A local soup kitchen has adapted its approach to help more people throughout Bastrop County, including in Elgin, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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In The Streets - Hands Up High Ministry is a soup kitchen and a shelter for families located at 987 North State Highway 95 between Elgin and Bastrop.

The ministry began offering bagged lunches in mid-March at their soup kitchen when the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic began to reach Bastrop County. When they could no longer let people come in to eat, they offered these meals through a drive-through on Mondays through Fridays from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. They also began distributing meals throughout the county, such as at the Bastrop Housing Authority on Wednesdays and at the Bastrop Public Library on Wednesdays and Fridays. Another of their weekly spots is the parking lot of D2, formerly Regulator’s, in Elgin, on Tuesdays from 1 to 3 p.m.; they will begin serving there on Fridays as well. Then, starting on April 17, the ministry began offering hamburgers at Greater Galilee Baptist Church in Elgin on Friday afternoons from 4 to 6 p.m.

According to Roland Nava, the founder and CEO of In The Streets - Hands Up High Ministry, they make 500 bagged lunches for people throughout Bastrop County; on Tuesdays, he added, they give out between 125 and 150 lunches at the Elgin location. During their first time stationed at Greater Galilee Baptist Church in Elgin on Friday, April 17, they gave out about 20 hamburgers, but Nava said they expect to see more people in future weeks since that first day was rainy.

BASTROP COUNTY, Texas — Driving up Highway 95 just north of Bastrop, you'll pass by three tall standing crosses that sit in front of In The Streets, Hands Up High Ministry.  The ministry is known for having a family homeless shelter, a soup kitchen that feeds 100 people every day, and hosting prayer services. Due to the impacts from the coronavirus pandemic, the ministry has shifted its soup kitchen operations to a drive-thru for safely handing out lunches to people who need it. 

The drive-thru runs Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at 987 N SH 95 in Bastrop.
"It's very important. There are a lot of people who depend on a meal from the soup kitchen. I mean, from children up to senior adults. I mean, it's very important to keep this going," said Roland Nava, the pastor and co-founder of the ministry. Nava also said they'll be planning on delivering meals around Bastrop County in addition to the drive-thru soup kitchen. 

“Communicating with the school in Bastrop, BISD (Bastrop ISD) and there are actually over 50% of the children who depend, maybe it might be 60% of the kids that go to BISD depend on breakfast and lunch from the schools and even the lunch program they have for the weekends where they have to bring food home," said Nava. “We’re going to continue doing this until everything returns to our regular operations.”
The ministry is asking for donations to keep their operations going. They specifically need materials like plates and plastic ware, among other things.

​https://www.kvue.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/bastrop-county-ministry-hosting-drive-thru-soup-kitchen-passing-out-lunches-to-people-in-need-during-coronavirus-pandemic/269-824dc83d-2311-4eec-8568-4e71ee9c092a

BASTROP, Texas (KXAN) — The Bastrop pastor who’s been for families experiencing homelessness is preparing again this year to pass out hundreds of gifts to families in need.
Roland Nava, founder of the Open Door Soup Kitchen, will again don the moniker “Vato Claus” to deliver donated toys and groceries this holiday season, drawing the name from the Spanish slang for “guy” or “dude.”
Now in his seventh year as Vato Claus, the pastor expects to serve about 1,000 families, up from 600 last year. 

BASTROP, Texas (KXAN) — A pastor who runs a soup kitchen in Bastrop is looking for sponsors of several short-term mini-shelters for homeless families he’s putting on his property.
Pastor Roland Nava, of In the Streets-Hands Up High Ministry and the Open Door Soup Kitchen, already has three large sheds that he’s converted into fully-furnished shelters with electricity and space for a family of five or more. Two of them will open to families who need them next week, and he’s aiming to add seven more in the coming weeks.
“They’re going to be their temporary home, and we want them to feel comfortable,” Nava said. He couldn’t find anything quite like these shelters in Bastrop County that lets families stay together when they find themselves homeless.
“I have seen two families that actually split up, that got divorced, that broke up because of their emergency,” he said.
All it takes is one crisis for a family to fall through the cracks — just one emergency to make keeping a roof over your head difficult to maintain. Jeff Randle knows all about that. He and his family were at the soup kitchen last week enjoying a free tamale breakfast.
“Pastor Nava, you know, he’s helped us out tremendously,” Randle said.
His family was preparing to move into a duplex in Houston last year after leaving a bad rental situation in Bastrop. Two days before they were set to move in, Hurricane Harvey hit the city and flooded the home. “So just like that, like boom, we’re like homeless, and I’ve never even thought of nothing like that in my life.”
Since then, the four of them have been staying in a hotel room in Central Texas and eating at the soup kitchen when they can. It’s been hard for them to save the money they’re making to find a permanent place to live.
“As long as we’re paying what we’re paying right now, it’s impossible. And it’s just keeping us stuck,” he said.
Randle and his family will be staying for free in one of Nava’s shelters when they open next week. Just a month or two should be enough, Randle thinks, to save up enough to put down the first and last month’s rent at a new home. While they’re waiting, they’ll be staying in the same place.
“We want them to feel the sense of family, togetherness through their hard time, through their situation,” Nava said. Families will be able to stay for up to three months on the property. “We want them to be encouraged, you know, that things can get better.”